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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25657117">Making Believe</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/mylittleredgirl/pseuds/mylittleredgirl'>mylittleredgirl</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Trek: Voyager</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Episode Related, Episode: s04e18-19 The Killing Game, F/M, Missing Scene</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 02:40:37</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,386</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25657117</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/mylittleredgirl/pseuds/mylittleredgirl</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Captain Miller thinks he's never met anyone like Katrine. He doesn't know how right he is.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Chakotay/Kathryn Janeway, Katrine/Miller (Star Trek)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>91</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Making Believe</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>inspired by <a href="https://mylittleredgirl.tumblr.com/post/625272316419571712/leisylaura-myrcella-katrine-captain-miller">gifs</a> by @myrcella on tumblr</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She’s like nothing he’s ever seen.</p><p>Miller has to chuckle to himself, crawling through a tunnel made of unfamiliar metal in a secret Nazi compound, connecting Saint Claire to caves full of the oddest folk he's ever heard of outside of fairy tales. The French dame beside him should be the <i>most</i> normal thing he’s seen in hours. </p><p>Katrine stops crawling and puts a hand on his arm, solid, stopping him. He can hear it too — movement outside the tunnel. She tilts her head in the direction they were headed, and he understands: keep moving, but quietly. <i>Funny,</i> he thinks. When he got up this morning, he sure didn’t think he’d end up taking orders from a mademoiselle dressed like a cat burglar in pin curls.</p><p>And if there’s a frisson of heat in him at the thought of taking orders from this woman in an entirely different circumstance —</p><p>Well, he’s gonna put that down to one hell of a strange day. </p><p>She stops again. “We’ll wait here,” she says, checking her watch. “The generator will be less heavily guarded after the shift change.” She sits against a wall and blows out a long exhale.</p><p>He mirrors her, and then offers up his canteen. She tilts her head back when she drinks, exposing her long, pale throat — he wants to rest his thumb there, feel the movement of muscle when she swallows. </p><p>It’s his turn to let out a slow breath. What the hell is the matter with him? He’s been in France for nearly two months, in England for a month before that, with barely a passing interest in the countless European dolls eager to show their gratitude to American G.I.s. He’ll look, sure — he’s got eyes in his head, after all — but he’s never been one to split his focus, to mix business and pleasure. They’ve got a war to win.</p><p>And — call him old-fashioned — but transitory romance doesn’t much appeal to him. If he takes a woman to bed, he wants to keep her. </p><p>So there’s no reason, no reason at all, for him to get doll-dizzy in a Nazi bunker when he needs every one of his wits about him. His mother sure would have something to say about this, all her letters telling him to keep his head down and focus so he’ll come home safe. </p><p>Katrine hands back the canteen. There’s a droplet of water on her lower lip, and she licks it away. Lust hits him so strongly, it’s like she shot him. </p><p>“What?” </p><p>He shakes his head, trying to clear it. “I’ve never met anyone like you.”</p><p>She smirks, a little superior, a little amused. It’s devastatingly sexy. “No, I imagine you haven’t.” She adjusts her seat, planting her feet, wrapping her hands around her knees. No ring.</p><p>He takes a gulp of water and drags his attention outside their little hideout before he completely loses himself and gives in to the urge to touch her, to draw his fingers up the inside of her bent leg, press himself against her. There’s gunfire, maybe a hundred yards away — if sound travels through this Nazi metal in any normal way. </p><p>He realizes she’s watching him, too. Like she’s looking for something. He’s had more than one French civilian look at him like they’re hoping for a savior — that’s not what this is. It’s like she’s trying to see under his skin. His face warms at the attention. “Something?”</p><p>“You... remind me of someone, that’s all.” </p><p>It’s her wistful look that makes him ask: “A lover?”</p><p>Her gaze snaps away from him, and he can see her pulse in her throat, getting faster. Strange, that this would be the thing to rattle her. “No,” she finally says, quiet. “There was a time when—” She looks up at him, with a sad fondness that takes his breath away, that makes him wish that she were thinking of him. “There are other priorities.”</p><p>“The war will be over eventually.” </p><p>“That’s what I tell myself.” Her voice is still quiet, and she’s still looking at him in a way no other woman ever has. Like she has seen his soul, and is looking for a way to unlock it. “It’s a long time to wait.” </p><p>She’s not, of course, she can’t be, it’s the absolute insanity of the day messing with him, but at that moment he’d swear on a Bible that there’s no other man. That she’s talking about him. That this is some kind of test, and if he passes, there’s life and love and a little house with a garden on the other side of the war, this unstoppable woman wearing his ring and his name. </p><p>“He’d be a fool not to.” </p><p>It comes out more intense than he intends. She doesn’t seem to know what to do with that any more than he does. She clears her throat. “What about you? Is there a Mrs. Miller waiting back at home?” </p><p>“Hardly.” It’s strange — sitting here, with Katrine, he can’t remember the face of a single girl he’s dated. Sometimes it feels like he came into existence on Normandy beach, like whoever he was before the war doesn’t even matter. It gives him a panicky feeling, like he’s forgotten something important, and he covers it with a joke: “There’s not a woman who’d have me.”</p><p>“I find that hard to believe.” </p><p>He reaches across the small space, touches her hand. She startles, and he almost pulls away, but then she softens and lets him fold her hand in his. The contact between them feels like a warm, slow fire, spreading all through him. “Promise me something,” he says.</p><p>She squeezes his hand back and her eyes close for a moment, like she’s as affected as he is. “What?”</p><p><i>Marry me,</i> he wants to say. He could stay in France; there’s nothing back in Oklahoma that has ever made him feel this alive. “When the war is over. When France is free... let me buy you a drink.”</p><p>She smiles, laughter in her eyes, a sweet levity underneath the hard determination that seems to define her. He hasn’t seen that kind of softness in her before, but it feels familiar nonetheless. He wants to see it every day for the rest of his life.</p><p>She says, voice dipped low and teasing, “I own the bar.”</p><p>He rubs his thumb over hers. “Then I expect a discount,” and he’s moving, closing the distance, desperate to kiss her just once before going back to a war he might not survive. To tide him over, until there’s nothing between them, until they strip each other bare and she tells him exactly how she likes to be touched. </p><p>Katrine stiffens, sharply, and plants a hand on his chest. “No,” she says, in that same clear tone she used to tell him she wouldn’t take his orders. </p><p>He recoils. “I’m sorry, I—” he sits back down, and tries to order his raging hormones to do the same. “I misread the situation.” <i>No kidding,</i> he thinks, remembering where they are, what they’re doing, the goddamn fate of the world—</p><p>Who the hell is this woman, who has such sway over him just hours after they met? </p><p>Katrine swallows, visibly, and rests her hand on his knee. “How about this, <i>Captain</i>,” she says, and again it’s like she’s looking for someone else in his face, or some part of himself he hasn’t discovered yet. “After the war — if you remember this — I’ll take you up on that drink.” </p><p>
  <i>If you remember this —</i>
</p><p>He thinks about the strange gaps in his sense of his life before the war and all the unease that goes with that, and then brushes it aside. He picks up her hand to gently kiss her knuckles. “I’ll hold you to it, Mademoiselle.”</p><p>She checks her watch. “Three minutes. Hand me that bag.” </p><p>For three minutes, she inventories their supplies, and he memorizes everything about her he can see, to keep him warm until they hoist the stars and stripes in Berlin. She’s like no one he’s ever known, ever even imagined, and he can’t define it except to say that Katrine is <i>real</i>, and everything before her now feels two-dimensional and lacking. </p><p>There’s no way — <i>no way</i> — he’ll forget a single thing.</p>
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